{"id":2259,"date":"2010-06-22T17:11:07","date_gmt":"2010-06-22T21:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=2259"},"modified":"2010-06-22T17:11:07","modified_gmt":"2010-06-22T21:11:07","slug":"the-circus-is-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/06\/22\/the-circus-is-coming\/","title":{"rendered":"The circus is coming"},"content":{"rendered":"

The G8<\/a> and G20<\/a> events roll into Toronto and Huntsville, Ontario this Friday through Sunday.<\/p>\n

It often seems the sideshows have become far more eventful than any actual proceedings. Preparations for protests (real or feared) have produced a staggering security tab estimated at almost one billion dollars. (All figures are in Canadian dollars.)\u00a0 And let’s not forget PR missteps like ‘Fakelakegate’<\/a>, mentioned in this earlier post by Jonathan Brown<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By the way, apologists for that artificial lake at the Toronto media center, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, wanted to emphasize that the lake itself did not<\/em> cost Canadian taxpayers the widely-reported 2 million dollars<\/a>. As an itemized feature that lake (or reflecting pond at a pavilion to promote Canada) was less than $60K. That supposed bargain was still assailed by the political opposition as more than many average Canadians earn in a year.<\/p>\n

Satirists could hardly make this stuff up, but are having fun with it anyway, as with this revised version<\/a> of the Bare Naked Ladies classic, updated as \u201cIf I Had a Billion Dollars\u201d<\/p>\n

This time around there is also a tangible Ottawa connection, one that undoubtedly heightened security concerns. On May18th, usually-placid Ottawa was shocked when a Glebe branch of the Royal Bank of Canada was firebombed<\/a>. This took place at night and no one was injured, though a video<\/a> of the fleeing perpetrators suggest it could have been a near thing for them.<\/p>\n

A group calling itself ‘Fighting for Freedom Coalition-Ottawa’ claimed responsibility. In that same video of the firebombing,\u00a0 FFFC-Ottawa gave their rationale and stated “we will be there\u201d for the G20 and G8 sessions and will “pass the torch” of opposition.<\/p>\n

Three men have been arrested and charged<\/a> in that case.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, stay tuned for coverage from that already-famous media center, and expect many more jokes about that lake\/pond\/whatever!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The G8 and G20 events roll into Toronto and Huntsville, Ontario this Friday through Sunday. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2259"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2259"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2259\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2260,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2259\/revisions\/2260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}